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Volvo: Our Driverless Car Will Be Out in 4 Years, and It Will Be Way More Advanced Than Anyone Else’s

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Jennifer van der Kleut

Volvo is moving full-speed ahead toward debuting its own self-driving car, claiming it will be released in the next four years-and, quite confidently, stating it will be “way more advanced” than any other company’s vehicle.

Tech Insider reports, Volvo spokespersons say they are marketing their forthcoming driverless car as one in which people will be mere passengers, not drivers, who will be able to do other activities like read, work, eat or sleep rather than pay attention to what the car is doing.

“We are really trying to deploy the technology in reality. And when I say that, I mean self-driving cars that allow drivers to do something else behind the steering wheel,” Erik Coelingh, Senior Technical Leader for Safety and Driver Support Technologies, told Tech Insider.

One of the ways Volvo plans to accomplish this is through the DriveMe testing pilot, which they are touting as “the largest and most ambitious autonomous driving pilot yet.”

DriveMe will allow ordinary citizens to lease autonomous cars for public testing on pre-mapped streets and routes, and will collect data on the cars’ performance. With the valuable data gathered from the tests, Volvo says it will be able to perfect their autonomous drive systems in time for a 2020 mass debut.

The first few DriveMe locations will reportedly be London, China, and Volvo’s home nation of Sweden.

In tandem with Volvo’s claim that they will have autonomous cars out by 2020, the company has also famously promised that their cars will be completely “fatality-free” by then as well.

Volvo spokespersons say their cars will combine advanced safety features with autonomous drive technology to create the alleged casualty-proof cars.

Some experts say, Volvo is already close to achieving its goal of having no one die in one of its cars. According to Tech Insider, the company tracks how many people in Sweden die in its cars each year; and in the previous generation of its XC90, only one person died. Furthermore, according to the Institute for Highway Safety latest safety data, no one in the U.S. died in an XC90 between 2009 to 2012.

As it works toward its fully autonomous car, Volvo plans to release a partially autonomous car, reportedly similar to Tesla’s Autopilot, by 2017, Digital Trends reports.

Volvo CEO and President Håkan Samuelson told Digital Trends, “Autonomous driving represents a leap forward in car safety. The sooner [self-driving] cars are on the roads, the sooner lives will start being saved.”

‘Summon’ Feature Drives Tesla Model S Into Trailer: Autonomous Bungle, or Driver Error?

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Jennifer van der Kleut

It is unclear whether the car’s self-driving system or operator error is to blame after a Tesla Model S drove itself into another parked vehicle recently.

According to news outlets who spoke with the owner of the Model S, Jared Overton of Utah, Overton said he parked his Model S behind a truck with a large trailer when he was out running errands.

A few moments later, Overton returned to find his car crashed into the trailer parked in front of him, Electrek reports.

Electrek reports that Overton contacted Tesla Motors to report that his car had driven itself into the other vehicle on its own. Tesla engineers reported that they reviewed the car’s logs, and discovered that the car’s “Summon” feature had been activated.

The Summon feature on a Model S “allows the car to drive itself on short distances without anyone in the car,” Electrek explains.Jared-Overton-smashed-Tesla-windshield

However, Tesla engineers say the logs indicate Summon was activated seconds after the car was turned off-yet Overton said he actually stuck around for at least 20 seconds after getting out of the car and shutting it off because an interested passer-by stopped him and asked him questions about the car. Therefore, Overton said he would have seen if the car started moving on its own just seconds later.

Tesla representatives also explain that drivers are specifically cautioned to stick around and “supervise” the car’s movements when they activate Summon. Also, drivers have to double-press the button to activate it, followed by an audible notification that the feature is being activated, allowing them to cancel it if they wish.

BGR news website obtained a copy of a letter Tesla sent to the driver after reviewing the incident, with a complete report of the car’s logs:

“The vehicle logs confirm that the automatic Summon feature was initiated by a double-press of the gear selector stalk button, shifting from Drive to Park and requesting Summon activation. The driver was alerted of the Summon activation with an audible chime and a pop-up message on the center touchscreen display. At this time, the driver had the opportunity to cancel the action by pressing CANCEL on the center touchscreen display; however, the CANCEL button was not clicked by the driver.”

“In the next second, the brake pedal was released, and two seconds later, the driver exited the vehicle. Three seconds after that, the driver’s door was closed, and another three seconds later, Summon activated pursuant to the driver’s double-press activation request. Approximately five minutes, sixteen seconds after Summon activated, the vehicle’s driver’s-side front door was opened again.”

Overton gave Electrek the photo above, which he took when he returned to his car to find it crashed into the trailer of the truck parked ahead of him.

This incident not only appears to shows the early challenges of self-driving car systems like Tesla Motors’ Autopilot and self-parking Summon feature, but it also shows how valuable logs as precise as Tesla’s can be in evaluating these systems and determining ways to improve and perfect them.

BGR agrees: “Tesla’s precise logs are impressive, and could be valuable in future cases where a crash is caused by an autonomous feature of the car.”

Photos by Jared Overton/Facebook as published by Electrek and TechInsider.

 

Report: Google and Fiat-Chrysler Partnering Up to Develop Self-Driving Mini-Vans

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Jennifer van der Kleut

According to Bloomberg News sources this week, Google and Fiat-Chrysler are planning to partner up to develop new self-driving mini-vans based on Fiat’s Pacifica model.

The new driverless mini-van will reportedly combine Fiat-Chrysler equipment with Google self-driving technology, and will function as a plug-in hybrid, Bloomberg reports.

Many industry experts are not surprised by the news. Just last month, Fiat-Chrysler Chairman John Elkann was quoted as saying that in order to keep up with the times, the automaker should work with “new industry participants” like Google and Apple, rather than compete with them.

Tech Insider reports that the first step in this partnership will be for Fiat-Chrysler to provide Google with a fleet of Pacifica mini-vans, which Google will equip with its self-driving technology and then put to the test.

Google has been in talks with various automakers for quite some time, trying to find a partner for the manufacturing of future driverless cars that would be available to consumers. Bloomberg reports that Google previously was in talks with General Motors, but that disagreements over ownership of the technology and data brought those talks to an end.

Tech Insider analysts think the Fiat Chrysler-Google partnership will be very beneficial to both parties.

“It would likely give Fiat Chrysler a jump start on getting Google’s autonomous tech-which already has 1.4 million miles clocked-in-into its cars before anyone else has the chance, and it’d also almost definitely be a ton cheaper for the company than if it was to develop it’s own self-driving tech.”

According to Bloomberg, the partnership will be moving forward very soon this year.

Volvo Pledges ‘Zero-Fatality’ Autonomous Cars by 2020

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Jennifer van der Kleut

As the race to build the most effective autonomous car heats up, Volvo has taken the competition one step further by promising to have a new autonomous Volvo on the road in which “no one will be killed or seriously injured.”

According to LeftLane News, Volvo safety engineer Erik Coelingh said in a CNN-produced video that the cars will combine advanced safety features with autonomous drive technology to create the alleged casualty-proof car.

Coehling says, first and foremost Volvo is working hard to improve upon safety features such as airbags and energy-dissipating body structures to ensure the car will be as safe as possible in the event of an accident.

Volvo says they are working on exterior “pedestrian airbags” as well as improving interior driver and passenger airbags. The pedestrian airbags will inflate from beneath the front hood of the car to cushion the impact with the pedestrian to help lessen injury, TechInsider explains.

Then, Coehling says they will develop the best autonomous drive technology to hopefully prevent accidents from ever happening. Those features include adaptive cruise control, auto lane keeping, impending collision braking assistance, traffic sign reading, and pedestrian and large animal detection.

For example, sensors will alert the driver if there is an object such as another car in their blind spot when changing lanes.

Some experts say, Volvo is already close to achieving its goal of having no one die in one of its cars. According to Tech Insider, the company tracks how many people in Sweden die in its cars each year; and in the previous generation of its XC90, only one person died. Furthermore, according to the Institute for Highway Safety latest safety data, no one in the U.S. died in an XC90 between 2009 to 2012.

The next stage of its plan-fully autonomous cars.

What do you think of Volvo’s plans? Tell us in the comments.

BMW’s New Concept Car Has 3 Modes: Manual Drive, Assist Mode and Autonomous Mode

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Here’s one of the coolest cars unveiled at CES 2016: BMW’s new concept car, the iVision Future Interaction.

Excitingly, the car has three modes: Manual Drive, in which the human driver controls the car like any normal car; Assist Mode, which has partially autonomous features; and Auto Mode, which BMW describes as “highly automated driving.”

The car seats two, and has a number of cool features as welBMW-iVision-Future-Interaction-concept-car-2l as the noticeable lack of certain expected features:

  • No Rearview Mirrors: Side mirrors have been replaced by a multi-camera system that BMW says cover larger viewing angles and “eliminate dangerous blind spots.” The typical in-car rearview mirror has been replaced with a 21-inch display screen that show feeds of what the multiple cameras are picking up.
  • Empty Dashboard: The in-car dashboard is practically empty, because they say the 21-inch display screen has every control you need-and can be managed by voice control, touch, or even hand gesture.
  • Gesture-Controlled Parking: Tech Insider says the driver can “wave a hand” to indicate when they want the car to pull in or out of a parking space.
  • No Doors: Noticeably, the two-seater car has no side doors and a sleek design.

There is no word on whether BMW actually plans to mass-market this car anytime in the future, however.

Read more about the iVision Future Interaction and see concept illustrations on Tech Insider.

That wasn’t the only unveiling BMW did at CES — replacing mirrors with cameras is a big passion for BMW currently. They also unveiled a mirrorless i8 concept car. See more about that on CNNMoney.

Stay tuned to DriverlessTransportation.com for more news out of CES 2016!

What do you think of the iVision Future Interaction concept car? Tell us in the comments.

Prediction: These 5 Companies Will Dominate the Driverless Industry, Bring Cars to Consumers

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Jennifer van der Kleut

A new report by the firm Juniper Research declares the five companies they believe will dominate the driverless car industry, and bring the first driverless cars to consumers, reports Business Insider.

Though countless companies have declared they will have mass-market driverless cars on public roads sometime between 2019 to 2025, Juniper has announced the five they think will win the race.

The five companies are:

  1. Google
  2. Volvo
  3. Daimler
  4. Tesla
  5. Apple

We at Driverless Transportation track four of these five companies in our exclusive D20 Stock Index.

Some may be surprised to see Apple - the lone company on Juniper’s list that we don’t track on the D20 - anywhere on the list, considering the company has all but denied they are doing any work toward researching and developing autonomous car technology. Countless news outlets have been pointing to signs that Apple is working on it in secret, though, including reports that Apple executives met with California Department of Motor Vehicles officials earlier this year to discuss laws and regulations for driverless vehicles.

Juniper said it handed the number-one spot to Google due to the fact they have been testing driverless cars longer than any other company in the game, and continue to collect mountains of real-time data every day.

Daimler, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz, made headlines earlier this year by driving an autonomous big-rig truck on a public highway. Daimler’s head of development has also publicly declared that the company will be the first to launch autonomous functions in production vehicles, “within this decade.”

Do you agree with Juniper’s predictions? Tell us in the comments.